Like the rest of the San Francisco 49ers, linebacker Ahmad Brooks has likely been spending most of his time over the past week or so preparing to face the Baltimore Ravens. Brooks has a responsibility to learn about Baltimore’s tendencies on offense and keep track of their playmakers, but I suppose there’s no reason he has to know their actual names. As long as he’s familiar with their numbers, that should suffice.
Thank goodness for that, since he recently confused Torrey Smith with Joe Torre. During an interview with 95.7 The Game’s Bucher and Towny on Tuesday, Brooks sounded like he legitimately believed Smith’s name was Joe Torre.
“They have good receivers; they have a good deep threat with Joe Torre, matter of fact he’s from around my way, shout out to Joe Torre,” Brooks said. “Is that his name? Joe Torre? They have him and Anquan Boldin. They have a good offensive line, they have a good fullback and we played against them last year on Thanksgiving, and the fullback was just pancaking some of our guys, so we have our hands full on Sunday.”
The audio of the interview is available here, and the Torrey/Torre talk comes in at about the 5:20 mark. Brooks and Smith are indeed both from Virginia. Brooks was informed that he was talking about Torrey Smith later in the interview, and he corrected himself by giving shout-out to the Ravens receiver rather than the legendary MLB manager.
As a linebacker, Brooks won’t have to worry as much about Smith as someone like Carlos Rogers will. However, he could learn his name in a hurry if Joe Flacco and Smith hook up on one of their patented deep balls early in the game and set the tone. I don’t know if Brooks was intentionally insulting Smith or not, but either way the second-year receiver must be slightly offended. If I was one of his Ravens teammates, I’d be hanging the quote above his locker.
Thanks to Sports Radio Interviews for transcribing the quotes
